


Firsts

by VioletHaze



Series: A Little Company [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Baby Fic, Domestic Castiel/Dean Winchester, First Steps, First birthday, M/M, Timestamp
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-05
Updated: 2016-06-05
Packaged: 2018-07-12 11:23:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7101172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VioletHaze/pseuds/VioletHaze
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean tries not to brag too often, but honestly, it’s obvious that his daughter is a rather advanced baby.</p><p>A timestamp to A Little Company.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Firsts

**Author's Note:**

> A timestamp to A Little Company for [ibelieveinthelittletreetopper](http://ibelieveinthelittletreetopper.tumblr.com/) in honor of Tam’s first birthday. With art by the ever-amazing [cluelessakemi](http://cluelessakemi.tumblr.com/)

At almost a year old Ellie has become so much her own person. She has a distinct little personality, with dependable likes and dislikes. She’s mastered the trick of dropping food from the high chair tray whenever old Sadie comes to visit, she can pull all the plastic containers out of the one un-babyproofed kitchen cabinet in a flash, and she has an endless love of being tossed in the air by Uncle Sam. She’s scared of the loud sound the garbage truck makes on Wednesday mornings, she hates staying still while they buckle her into the carseat, and she continues to rebel against the oppressive nature of socks. 

For the most part she’s happy and healthy and Dean and Cas are endlessly entertained by her. (Except for the time she crawled over to one particular spot near the front window and spent fifteen minutes laughing at absolutely nothing. That night they’d put her to bed then run an entire battery of tests looking for evidence of anything supernatural. When they’d reported that to Jody, she’d spent fifteen minutes laughing herself.)

Despite her time in the hospital, her development has been nothing less than stellar. Dean tries not to brag too often, but honestly, it’s obvious that she’s a rather advanced baby. 

The only thing she hasn’t done yet is walk. 

Sure, walking by a year is just a rough guideline and it’s not like he’d be  _ disappointed _ if it took longer, but seeing as she was early to teethe, roll, and crawl it just makes sense that she’d be an early walker too. Despite his best efforts, as the days tick down to her first birthday, she’s content merely to cruise around with a solid grip on the nearest piece of furniture.

When Dean tries supporting her under the armpits, she’ll happily march her knees up and down but as soon as he tries letting go, she holds her legs up in the air leaving him to hang on or essentially drop her. When he tries holding her hands and walking with her, she’ll take a few mincing steps before going boneless and collapsing to the floor. 

“She’s not quite ready,” he tells Cas, who shrugs, unconcerned. 

“She’ll be ready when she’s ready.”

Well, that’s the kind of nonsense platitude that Dean has no use for so he spends some time on Amazon reading reviews for push toys to determine which one might push her a little closer to readiness. 

Three days before her birthday, when he’s already recalibrated his own expectations, she’s standing with one arm on a couch cushion to steady her while she chews contentedly on a plastic octopus. Dean takes advantage of the moment to pick up the toys scattered around the living room floor. It’s a pointless task, he knows, seeing as crawling at light speed over to the toybox and hauling herself up to pull everything out is one of her top three favorite activities. (The other two, in no particular order, are: clutching packages of cheese as they roll through the grocery store, and trying to grab and drink from every glass he and Cas use.) With the floor at least temporarily cleared and the baby still entertaining herself, he sits back down on the carpet and starts to pull out his phone. But it must ping on the cell phone radar she always has running and she pivots toward him. Resigned, he pushes it back into his pocket and waits for her to drop down and crawl over to him. 

The octopus goes clattering to the floor as she pushes off the couch and, as he watches in amazement, she takes two teetering steps toward him. He catches her just before she faceplants onto his leg.

Dean holds her up and she bats his arms with both hands. He grins at her and hoists her into the air. “I knew you could do it!” She grins back at him, happy because he’s happy. “We gotta tell Papa.”

_ Got a minute? _ He texts Cas.

Five minutes later Cas texts back that he’s in his office between classes. Dean sends him a FaceTime request which he promptly answers. “Guess who just took two steps?” He points the camera at Ellie who has crawled away in the meantime. 

Cas’s face breaks into a wide smile. “Ellie! Did you walk all by yourself?”

At the sound of her Papa’s voice, Ellie speed-crawls back over and up into Dean’s lap to get her hands on the phone. Dean kneels and wraps one arm around her, lifting her to her feet. He holds the phone just out of reach, hoping to get her to demonstrate the new skill, but she refuses. When her happy noises deteriorate into wails of frustration, he distracts her with a toy. That works for about a nanosecond before she’s climbing all over him to get at the phone again. He says goodbye to Cas and puts her in the high chair while he gets their lunches ready.

She refuses to take any more steps all afternoon, despite him using every trick in the book. Maybe it was just a fluke, he thinks, just gravity pulling her forward with zero intention on her part. He should have been sure before he made a big deal out of it. 

He knows how lucky he is to be home with her, but it brings with it a dose of guilt for being present for things Cas misses. (On top of that, after the scare they’d had when she was so sick, he promised himself he’d appreciate every single moment with her, but sometimes he’s still frustrated and bored, and that compounds his guilt.)

By the time Cas gets home at the end of the day, Dean’s almost apologetic. 

“She’s making a liar out of me,” he says. “Maybe now that she napped, she’ll do it again.” He goes to get her from her crib while Cas fixes himself a snack. She’s pink-cheeked and sleepy, insisting on bringing her blanket out with her. When he picks them both up and snuggles her close, she wraps her little arms around his neck and molds into him. (Ok, fine, the first time he realized she was actively hugging him back, he might’ve needed to wipe his eyes on his sleeves.)

Downstairs, she crawls away as soon as Dean sets her on the floor. She gathers up two of her Fisher-Price little people, one for each hand, before pulling herself up on the toybox. She’s so absorbed with banging the toys that she doesn’t notice Cas come into the room. 

He motions for Dean to get the camera ready and then sits down and softly calls her name. She turns and smiles at him and that’s when he pulls out the big guns: the new, unopened wedge of parmesan.

Her eyes light up and maybe having her hands filled with toys tricks her into thinking someone is holding them, because she raises her hands up by her shoulders and takes three steps this time, flinging the toys to the ground when Cas catches her so she can grab the cheese. 

Dean captures it perfectly (and from then on the footage gets used as a visual in a lecture Cas gives his students on character motivation) and they celebrate, but Ellie only has eyes for the cheese. 

When they finally wrangle it away from her, she crawls into the kitchen and pulls up on the front of refrigerator to wail some more. Dean pulls out the box of yogurt drops and thinks longingly to those days before object permanence kicked in. 

The older she gets the harder it is to distract her and while it makes his job harder, Dean is secretly pleased with her tenaciousness. His daughter is no pushover. She’s smart and determined and won’t stop until she gets what she wants. 

And she walked before she was a year old.

***

Her birthday party is on a Sunday afternoon and even though it doesn’t start until one o’clock, people keep trickling in earlier to help. Sam comes first with Claire in tow and Sadie on the leash. Their arms are full of food and presents. Ellie, of course, squirms until Cas puts her down and then ignores everyone to make a beeline for Sadie, who sits calmly even when Ellie tugs on a long ear to pull herself up so that she can “pat“ every part she can reach. 

“Ba!” Ellie says, which is her word for dogs in general and is not to be confused with “Da” which is what she calls both of her fathers. (The number of Das varies with her mood. A single Da can signal outrage or delight while a repeated string of them is used when she’s happy or to get their attention. Her only other distinguishable word is “Uh-oh” which she says just before intentionally dropping something.)

Claire and Sam help unpack the food and then Claire picks up the one still-full bag and nods to Sam. He folds up his giant limbs to crawl across the floor and Ellie shrieks and abandons Sadie to crawl toward him. He picks her up and tosses her in the air one time then carries her toward the steps. 

“We’re going to get her ready for the party,” Claire explains and she follows him up. 

Dean and Cas look at each other but there’s no time to discuss it because the doorbell is ringing (Sadie doesn’t bother to even lift her head) and there are Bobby and Jody and Alex to add to the general bustle of the day. 

Ten minutes later, Claire comes back down with Ellie in her arms. Ellie has mastered a lot of things in her first year of life, but hair growth has not been one of them. Still, Claire has somehow managed to twist Ellie’s wispy brown hair into wee pig tails that are held in place with sparkly purple hair ties. She’s also put her in an absolute confection of a party dress. The sleeveless white top is appliqued with a pink, polka-dotted number one and the bottom is a layered mountain of rainbow tulle. A  bright pink ribbon forms a wide sash around her waist. 

“This is...unexpected,” Cas says carefully and Dean nods his agreement because since the very beginning Claire has spoken loudly and often about the importance of smashing patriarchal expectations and the need to keep Ellie out of what she calls a “gender bucket”. And while he’s learned enough to know that it doesn’t preclude the choice of super-feminine outfits (choice being the operative word) this doesn’t smack of Claire’s way of doing things.

“Wasn’t me,” she protests.

Dean turns to Jody but she lifts both hands in clear denial. “I’m insulted you would even think it.”

Before they can say another word, Bobby is clearing his throat. “She’s only gonna have one first birthday,” he says gruffly and glares at them all before tugging his ballcap down. 

Dean is still reeling from the fact that Bobby went out and bought the baby a  _ goddamned tutu _ to wear to her party and he’s only a little concerned he might lead out an actual pony to give her next, when Sam comes down the steps with his hair styled exactly like Ellie’s, down to the matching glittery purple hair ties. 

“I think it’s time to open the beer,” Cas decides.

The party is raucous and loud as the house fills with people. Friends from the baby story time group show up as do friends from the park and the neighborhood (Mrs. Doyle brings a selection of “summer hats” she’s crocheted in soft pastels.). There are also a handful of Cas’s co-workers and the guys from Bobby’s garage. Charlie can’t be there but sends an incredible handmade Moondoor Princess outfit for Ellie. 

When it’s time for cake, they put Ellie in the high chair (Bobby won’t hear of them changing her out of the dress because  _ when else is she gonna wear it, son _ ?) but Cas has to take her right back out again because she cries when everyone starts singing to her. She hides her face in Cas’s neck until they’re done and it takes him some quiet coaxing before she’ll even look at the cake. Once she sees it, she tries to dive for it and he puts her back in the high chair (pushing down the tutu which floofs upward into her face) as Dean ties the biggest bib he can find around her neck. 

The cake is a glorious disaster. Once she gets a taste of the frosting, the dainty poking she’d been doing turns into two handed smashing. She crams fistfuls into her mouth, smears it on her cheek and gleefully rubs it into her hair. Sticky, crumb-filled globs are under her chin and on her elbows and in her ear and Dean has to tamp down his personal horror and smile for the pictures. Cas wraps an arm around his waist and whispers those couple of words that allow him to transcend the moment:  _ I’ll clean her up _ .

The party continues as people eat and drink and mingle in all sorts of unlikely combinations. 

Dean looks at Cas and thinks about the amazing things that have sprouted from their own unlikely combination: a home, a family, a community of love and support. This first year has been filled with fear and joy in equal parts. It’s dragged along sleepless night by sleepless night and it’s flown by in the blink of an eye. Today Ellie walks toward them, reaching out for the hands she knows will hold and protect her. There are many more years ahead of them but Dean can’t help but feel that it won’t be long before she’s walking away, moving off into her own life. Hopefully she’ll spare them a backward glance. 

  



End file.
